Affordable housing project going up in East Garrison

East Garrison's first rooftops are peaking over a wall separating the Fort Ord planned community from Reservation Road. And, many more rooftops could be joining them within a year.

A few months after a groundbreaking ceremony, construction on a $22.9 million, 66-unit affordable housing project dubbed Manzanita Place is well under way.

Backed by MidPen Housing, the rental apartments complex is the affordable housing component of the 244-acre, 1,400-home East Garrison community's first phase.

The apartments should be finished and ready for occupancy by low and very-low income residents in May.

According to MidPen spokeswoman Beth Fraker, construction on the apartment complex is about 20 percent complete, and the resident application process is expected to get under way in the fall.

In a statement, Fraker said: "As the first completed development within the larger master-planned East Garrison community, we look forward to Manzanita Place being part of a vibrant, mixed-income community with many wonderful community amenities, public parks and an arts district."

The project is on an accelerated timeline because of the use of $10million in federal stimulus funds and must be finished by September 2013.

At the same time, East Garrison master developer Union Community Partners is nearing the completion of infrastructure on the site, and the first market-rate homes could be under construction by early next year.

According to UCP vice president Jim Fletcher, the plan is to start securing building permits by January and begin building shortly thereafter. Fletcher said the plan is for UCP's home-construction subsidiary Benchmark Communities to build as many as a dozen model homes and up to 30 "production" homes in three or four different "subcommunities" through UCP as part of the project's first phase.

A home sales office could open as soon as May, he said.

Since taking over the East Garrison project in 2009 after the original developer fell into bankruptcy, UCP has made steady progress on the mixed-use community development plan.

UCP and the county signed a new development agreement last summer that essentially kept the original three-phased project concept intact.

The project's first phase is expected to include 441 homes, neighborhood parks and open space, a community park and the beginnings of a town center.

Later phases of the development call for 959 more housing units including affordable housing projects, along with an arts district employing historic army buildings, a town center with shops, a fire station and library, and several parks.

Under the development agreement, all market-rate lots are to be sold by March 2016, and all market-rate housing units are to be ready for occupancy by March 2021.